Mobility

EVs, batteries, trains, ships and the future of transport

In Mobility, ECOnews covers electric vehicles and EV batteries, e-bikes, trains and public transit, ships, aircraft and space travel. These are the innovations, infrastructure and policies changing how people and goods move by land, sea and air.

Carpathian road tunnel: the Karpatka boring machine breaks through the concrete portal at the end of the first tube

Poland is boring a Carpathian road tunnel with a 4,400-ton machine, and methane seeping from test wells forced engineers to refit it for potentially explosive air

By Adrian Villellas

—

November 14, 2026 at 11:27 AM

Fehmarnbelt tunnel element held under water between the two IVY pontoons off the Danish coast

Denmark is lowering 81,000-ton concrete blocks onto the seabed for the Fehmarnbelt tunnel to Germany, and the next piece is a special element the size of a four-story building, with a basement

By ECONEWS

—

November 13, 2026 at 12:32 PM

Newark Airport runway seen from the air, the type of airfield pavement built on a coal fly ash base in the 1970s

Engineers buried coal fly ash beneath Newark Airport’s jumbo jet runways, and a federal guideline says pavements built this way kept performing satisfactorily after 20 or more years

By Adrian Villellas

—

November 13, 2026 at 11:31 AM

Yellow road roller with a red ribbon on freshly laid asphalt during paving of the plastic road at a Shanghai university campus

Dow says it built China’s first plastic road with more than 6,000 used milk bottles and other plastic that recyclers did not want, and what kept the bottles out of recycling was the milk left inside them

By ECONEWS

—

November 12, 2026 at 6:27 PM

Shell Starship 3.0 Hybrid concept truck used to test an immersion cooling battery

Shell and FAW Trucks are testing an immersion cooling battery that bathes truck cells in liquid, and Shell says early results point to potential climbing gains of up to 98 percent, pending final validation

By ECONEWS

—

November 11, 2026 at 11:30 AM

Truck with no cab from Einride at a Lidl loading dock at night in Germany

Germany now has a truck with no cab hauling Lidl groceries on a public road up to three times a day, and one human job still travels with it in a separate vehicle

By Adrian Villellas

—

November 11, 2026 at 10:13 AM

Three road workers in high-visibility clothing stand beside an asphalt paver on a freshly surfaced residential street in Padiham, Lancashire

Tarmac estimates that road asphalt with worn-out tires, first tested on Britain’s M1 motorway, could take up to 1,200 per mile, and the carbon savings turned out to depend on more than the rubber

By Adrian Villellas

—

November 10, 2026 at 8:47 AM

The old Zhongshan Bridge arch over the Keelung River in Taipei in December 2002, shortly before it was dismantled

Taipei cut its old Zhongshan Bridge into 435 pieces to make room for floodwaters, and two decades later the city still has not settled where to put it back together

By Adrian Villellas

—

November 1, 2026 at 4:55 PM

BelAZ 75710 dump truck with its 450-ton payload sign on display at the UMMC museum complex in Verkhnyaya Pyshma

The BelAZ 75710 dump truck hauls 450 metric tons on eight tires, and the record mining giant still runs on diesel, with two 16-cylinder engines making power for its electric motors

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 26, 2026 at 12:29 PM

The Airbus A330 C-GITS that flew as Air Transat Flight 236, known as the Azores Glider, on the runway at Toronto Pearson in 2016

Over the Atlantic in 2001, Air Transat Flight 236 lost power to both engines and glided about 75 miles for roughly 19 minutes, and all 306 people aboard survived a hard landing in the Azores

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 20, 2026 at 5:02 PM

Sceye's ST1 stratospheric airship rising beside its hangar in New Mexico at the start of the flight to Japan

New Mexico’s Sceye flew a solar-powered stratospheric airship about 18,600 miles to Japan and back in about a month and used it to beam calls and video to ordinary smartphones from more than 54,000 feet

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 19, 2026 at 6:31 PM

Electric car plugged into a Rheinmetall curb charger set into the curb beside a paved sidewalk

Cologne tested a curb charger that hides a 22-kilowatt EV socket inside a standard-size curbstone, logging 2,829 charging sessions with over 99 percent availability, and installation still cost about the same as a charging post

By ECONEWS

—

October 17, 2026 at 5:01 PM

Bow view of Allseas' Pioneering Spirit at sea, showing its two black hulls, the slot between them and a red crane rising behind the accommodation block

The world’s largest construction vessel had to take on ballast water and sink lower to fit under the 213-foot clearance of Denmark’s Great Belt Bridge on its way to a Baltic wind farm

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 17, 2026 at 3:02 PM

Container ship Tangier Maersk docked at the Port of Mobile in Alabama

Maersk fueled the 9,016-TEU Tangier Maersk with 100 percent corn ethanol in America’s first ethanol bunkering of a deep-sea container ship, as a national lab says today’s methanol-ready fleet could burn 2 billion gallons yearly

By ECONEWS

—

October 13, 2026 at 12:31 PM

Agua Negra Pass in the Andes, on the border between San Juan, Argentina, and Chile

The Agua Negra tunnel plan calls for a custom machine to bore twin 8.6-mile tubes under the Andes, but the $1.5 billion Argentina-Chile project has been stuck since the IDB approved it in 2017

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 12, 2026 at 6:29 PM

Gummy bears made with potassium lactate recovered from a recyclable wind turbine resin

Michigan State engineer John Dorgan ate gummy bears made with an ingredient recovered from a resin designed for wind turbine blades, and the same material can also become plexiglass, diaper polymer and new turbine panels

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 11, 2026 at 12:31 PM

Airbus A350F freighter test aircraft taking off on its first flight

Airbus A350F freighter completes its maiden flight and begins 400-hour test campaign

By ECONEWS

—

October 10, 2026 at 8:47 AM

A yellow driverless container vehicle with a banner marking 25 million TEUs parked under green quay cranes at Tuas Port

Singapore built 227 concrete caissons, each about 10 stories tall, for a 9.1-kilometer seawall at Tuas Port, and its operator’s own report shows emissions rose 7% in 2025 as more cargo moved to the electric terminal

By ECONEWS

—

October 4, 2026 at 5:02 PM

GoSun Moonrider tractor charging from its solar canopy at sunset

A fully electric tractor that recharges from its own solar roof goes on sale in North America, runs about five hours per charge and could save small farms around $15,000 over five years

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 1, 2026 at 8:16 AM

A blended wing body research aircraft banking in flight, its centre body merging into the wings

China has tested a flying wing built to carry more than 800 passengers with an 85-meter span wider than an A380, and the real obstacle is not the aircraft but the airports that would have to park it

By Adrian Villellas

—

September 24, 2026 at 4:01 PM

Mobility

Poland is boring a Carpathian road tunnel with a 4,400-ton machine, and methane seeping from test wells forced engineers to refit it for potentially explosive air

Denmark is lowering 81,000-ton concrete blocks onto the seabed for the Fehmarnbelt tunnel to Germany, and the next piece is a special element the size of a four-story building, with a basement

Engineers buried coal fly ash beneath Newark Airport’s jumbo jet runways, and a federal guideline says pavements built this way kept performing satisfactorily after 20 or more years

Dow says it built China’s first plastic road with more than 6,000 used milk bottles and other plastic that recyclers did not want, and what kept the bottles out of recycling was the milk left inside them

Shell and FAW Trucks are testing an immersion cooling battery that bathes truck cells in liquid, and Shell says early results point to potential climbing gains of up to 98 percent, pending final validation

Germany now has a truck with no cab hauling Lidl groceries on a public road up to three times a day, and one human job still travels with it in a separate vehicle

Tarmac estimates that road asphalt with worn-out tires, first tested on Britain’s M1 motorway, could take up to 1,200 per mile, and the carbon savings turned out to depend on more than the rubber

Taipei cut its old Zhongshan Bridge into 435 pieces to make room for floodwaters, and two decades later the city still has not settled where to put it back together

The BelAZ 75710 dump truck hauls 450 metric tons on eight tires, and the record mining giant still runs on diesel, with two 16-cylinder engines making power for its electric motors

Over the Atlantic in 2001, Air Transat Flight 236 lost power to both engines and glided about 75 miles for roughly 19 minutes, and all 306 people aboard survived a hard landing in the Azores

New Mexico’s Sceye flew a solar-powered stratospheric airship about 18,600 miles to Japan and back in about a month and used it to beam calls and video to ordinary smartphones from more than 54,000 feet

Cologne tested a curb charger that hides a 22-kilowatt EV socket inside a standard-size curbstone, logging 2,829 charging sessions with over 99 percent availability, and installation still cost about the same as a charging post

The world’s largest construction vessel had to take on ballast water and sink lower to fit under the 213-foot clearance of Denmark’s Great Belt Bridge on its way to a Baltic wind farm

Maersk fueled the 9,016-TEU Tangier Maersk with 100 percent corn ethanol in America’s first ethanol bunkering of a deep-sea container ship, as a national lab says today’s methanol-ready fleet could burn 2 billion gallons yearly

The Agua Negra tunnel plan calls for a custom machine to bore twin 8.6-mile tubes under the Andes, but the $1.5 billion Argentina-Chile project has been stuck since the IDB approved it in 2017

Michigan State engineer John Dorgan ate gummy bears made with an ingredient recovered from a resin designed for wind turbine blades, and the same material can also become plexiglass, diaper polymer and new turbine panels

Airbus A350F freighter completes its maiden flight and begins 400-hour test campaign

Singapore built 227 concrete caissons, each about 10 stories tall, for a 9.1-kilometer seawall at Tuas Port, and its operator’s own report shows emissions rose 7% in 2025 as more cargo moved to the electric terminal

A fully electric tractor that recharges from its own solar roof goes on sale in North America, runs about five hours per charge and could save small farms around $15,000 over five years

China has tested a flying wing built to carry more than 800 passengers with an 85-meter span wider than an A380, and the real obstacle is not the aircraft but the airports that would have to park it

The UK is funding research on a planetary sunshade of 5,000 spacecraft between Earth and the sun, and the catch is that most of the material would likely have to come from the Moon

Australia planted 14,000 native plants around the solar panels on a rooftop in its first new city in a century, and the panels outperformed a conventional roof while a rare bee moved in

A scholar studying manuscripts in the Netherlands noticed familiar words on a scrap dismissed as unremarkable, and it turned out to be a 1,700-year-old fragment of the Odyssey that likely came from a pocket edition

A microscope video said to show a child’s airway cells won Nikon’s Small World in Motion contest, then lost first place over generative AI, and 469 people signed a letter questioning what it showed

Some Norwegian salmon are eating poultry by-products people don’t eat, and their producer says that could cut its feed’s carbon footprint by up to 16 percent, but wild fish in the recipe complicate the story

Solar panel recycling in the US costs $15 to $45 per module while a landfill can take one for under $1, and with up to 1 million tons of old panels expected by 2030, most recyclers still only keep the glass and frames

A company wants to melt rock with microwaves for a superhot geothermal plant beside an Oregon volcano, and the first well heading almost 3 miles down does not use them

Mobility

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